DOE's Three Restricted Reserves of Unobligated Funds

Gao ID: RCED-96-208R August 8, 1996

GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) three restricted reserves of unobligated funds. GAO noted that: (1) DOE established the reserves to respond to unforeseen departmental funding requirements; (2) these reserves include the Prior-Year Deobligation Reserve, the Prior-Year Cost Adjustment Reserve, and the Project Overrun Reserve; (3) the reserves are composed of deobligated funds that no longer have a defined need and are unavailable for use unless released by DOE; (4) DOE has not consistently followed its own criteria for placing funds in or using funds from the reserves; (5) funds have been allocated from the reserves without proper documentation and for purposes that do not meet the DOE criteria; and (6) reserve guidelines need to be revised to better reflect departmental needs.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Victor S. Rezendes Team: Government Accountability Office: Natural Resources and Environment Phone: (202) 512-6082


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.